Hey guys! Just landed Whole Foods and am super stoked. They have two locations here in my town. My question to you all is that they require me to have a 5 million dollar umbrella policy, workman’s comp ( right now have an exemption), one million in auto ( right now have 500 thousand), and one million in gen liability( I have this). I am a new company and don’t have a lot of resources at the moment so it is a big decision whether or not to go forward. Right now I have one location locked at 360/month but am not sure if the outlay for the extra insurance will be worth the trouble unless they can give me the other store as well. Even then it is a tough decision. How many larger commercial accounts will require a 5 million dollar umbella policy and one million in vehicle insurance for window cleaning. The other thing to consider if it may be worth it due to the prestige of the account helping me land other jobs bc of it. Thanks for reading this super long post! What do you guys think?

Thanks jhans. So you guys carry a 2000000 dollar umbrella. What other amounts should typically be required for mid rise and under commercial work? When you say you have them cover the rest do you mean the difference in cost per year between the 2-5 mil. Thanks so much bud. My company is growing like a weed and I am trying to wrap my head around all this. Seems like I have new questions everyday. #feeling blessed! You are awesome by the way. I have learned a lot from all the posts you have commented on. Thanks so much for being a part and great contributor to this community.

If a customer requires limits above what we have we do tell them they need to pay the rate it costs for us to satisfy the request since it is above and beyond.

Many of them are dealing with service providers who can actually cause real property damage, plumbing , electrical, construction. We are not in the same class as that and more towards the janitorial end of insurance.

I had one large company pay $3500 for me to add Insurance requests on a job that I billed them $1700 for.

We refuse to carry limits above what we just normally have. You’ll get this extra coverage, they’ll be the only ones that require it and then they’ll cancel services mid year and you’re on the hook for the entire cost of the policy. Happens like clock work. Don’t let customers be in the driver seat of YOUR business. 5 million in coverage for window cleaning is beyond unreasonable. Your cleaning glass, not building bridges.

Youre basically going to have to go back them and tell them you have to charge 2.5 times what you quoted to pay for the insurance. My opinion, you really don’t want this account.

So I talked to my insurance agent today. He clued me in on quite a bit. Said he would be happy to write the policies but to run like hell! he said they have rings of people who just go into stores and fall down on purpose to sue the company and then they usually end up using you as a patsy. He insures a lot of the major cleaning companies in this area and has been in business for over 30 years so I trust his opinion. He said it is so bad around here that he would be tempted to start another LLC and policy if I do go through with getting these type of accounts so that I can still be able to have insurance with my main company, and be fully protected. Most of these guys get 4-5 claims a year due to this and then insurance goes sky high. But realistically to run like hell!! too funny!